Orson Welles' pretensions return!

Back in August, I mentioned what I think it the pretentiousness of Orson Welles, and my theories on why some people seem to praise him for it. For those who wish to see another example of this, you can watch Welles' take on William Shakespeare's Macbeth, tomorrow at 6:00 AM ET on TCM.

Welles plays the title role in a version that is very spare, as it was made on a low budget at Republic Pictures. (Presumably, by this time, everybody in Hollywood knew about Welles' profligacy and the only way Welles could get a picture made was to work under an exceedingly tight budget at a crummy studio.) There's a lot of fog, and a lot of bogus Scottish accents.

To be honest, I'm somewhat prejudiced against the movie, not only because of my prejudices against Welles' work, but because Macbeth isn't my favorite Shakespeare play by a long shot. Even taking all this into account, this movie can't possibly hold a candle to Warner Brothers' 1935 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Perhaps somebody should have told Orson Welles to stick to acting.